ccbweb's Profile
Charlottesville non-traditional Thanksgiving dinner?
Check out the Ivy Inn,
http://www.ivyinnrestaurant.com/dinnermenu.html
It's somewhat traditional with a few unique-ish dishes but it's decidedly not a buffet. And they execute exceptionally well.
Restaurant recommendations in Charlottesville, Va.?
From my perspective The Ivy Inn executes quite well but they're quite predictable. They're very seasonal (which is good, generally speaking) but somehow too much so. Or at least they don't seem to get away from the half a dozen things everyone knows about each season. I don't find it an exciting place to eat if that makes any sort of difference. Many people aren't looking to be excited when they go out to eat, they're looking for good service and good food and The Ivy Inn certainly delivers both of those. I prefer L'etoile simply because I think that they try to imagine new things on a fairly regular basis.
Of course, now that I'm thinking about it, I love The Ivy Inn's setting and on a warm summer night the porch is a spectacular place to take your coffee (if they still let you do that.) They've got a patio but it's got a huge white tent over it so it's not exactly outside anymore and loses a lot of the charm of the old house.
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L'etoile Restaurant
817 W Main St, Charlottesville, VA 22903
Restaurant recommendations in Charlottesville, Va.?
Good advice here (as usual from mojoeater). I'd go with either Zocalo or L'etoile over the others. L'etoile is a bit fancier than Zocalo (though not super fancy still...only fancier by comparison). Zocalo has a superior bar, L'etoile has a superior wine list. The food at both is quite good though Zocalo almost never changes their menu so I think it's entirely possible to get somewhat bored with it. That said, unless your friends are regulars there they'll love it. The service at both places is also very good.
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L'etoile Restaurant
817 W Main St, Charlottesville, VA 22903
Zocalo
201 E Main St, Charlottesville, VA 22902
Moving to Charlottesville...Cheap Eats
Pulled pork, and I think ribs (also pork). That's almost the entire menu as well. I think he's got slaw, beans and a cucumber salad.
Moving to Charlottesville...Cheap Eats
Check out retailrelay.com They do a delivery/pick up service from many places in town. We've used them several times and have been very pleased. They have many farms from whom you can buy directly in addition to a few grocery stores and specialty stores. They have one of the Asian markets in town and now some Whole Foods products. They don't have every product from every store, but they cover a wide variety of stuff. The good part of it is that if they do have things you want you can get items from many stores and pick it all up at the same time in the same place. You have to pay extra if you want home delivery and I haven't used that service yet.
Delivery from Asian Express is quite good for Americanized Chinese food (and they'll modify any dish to your specifications which helps a lot).
Take it Away sandwich shop on Elliewood Ave is good.
Boylan Heights on the corner does a nice job with burgers and fries.
The Blue Moon Diner is again excellent (they were for a while, then they weren't, then they closed, now they're really good). They'll surpass your expectations of what a diner is and their coffee is the best I've had in a restaurant in town and better than most of the coffee shops, too.
Belmont BBQ is pretty good. The chicken is exceptional.
Jinx Pit's Top Barbecue is really good. Really.
Beer Run is a fine, fine place for beer from everywhere and for cheap eats, too. (Free Beer tastings on Wed. and Wine tastings on Fri. -- The free beer tasting and the Wednesday market a half a mile down the road makes for a nice Wed afternoon/evening).
Riverside Lunch on High St. is great for thin burgers and fries and cold, cold bottles of beer or Coke.
A chain, but still, Five Guys also does a nice job on burgers and fries. Bring a friend to deal with the fries...the order is large.
Fabio's New York Pizza also on High St. does a lovely job. Get the garlic knots.
Pizza Bella Bistro is also very good and delivers to the Belmont area and that part of town.
Christian's Pizza downtown on the Mall is good, too.
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Riverside Lunch
1427 Hazel St, Charlottesville, VA 22902
Blue Moon Diner
512 W Main St, Charlottesville, VA 22903
Boylan Heights
102 14th St NW, Charlottesville, VA 22903
Asian Express
909 W Main St, Charlottesville, VA 22903
Moving to Charlottesville...Cheap Eats
The Wednesday market is on Meade Ave in Meade Park and is called "Farmer's in the Park." It's great as it's only food and plants, no arts and crafts. It's quite a bit smaller than the Saturday market but that's a strength in my opinion. Many of the same smaller food vendors are there. There's beef, pork, poultry, all manner of vegetables and hand made butter, too. Not to mention fresh popsicles and gelato.
Recipes board - recipes with no ingredients listed?
What occurred to me is that it looks like this poster is using Chow's recipe feature as a way to save recipes from other websites for their own personal use. Like an online recipe folder. Just copy and past the whole thing into one or two fields on the Chow recipe submission page and then they can access the recipe from their My Chow or whatever from other computers. The poster doesn't seem interested in putting anything up in a way that would be reasonably useful for others.
The King is dead; Long live the King (Arthur Flour @ Trader Joe's.
Have you given any thought to trying the TJ's store brand flour? The King Arthur blog post about this notes that TJ's is discontinuing carrying the King Arthur flour because they're ready to carry their own line of baking products under their own label. Maybe the flour will be good.
Haagen Dazs Five: high overrun?
It sounds like it might be a really nice thing to have a scoop of with a piece of pumpkin pie or maybe a slice of carrot cake. My mother used to make a "spice cake" that had cloves, allspice, cinnamon and such in it; that sort of thing would also make a nice complement.
Salmon
In addition to being superior in flavor and texture, wild pacific salmon is also far more sustainable an option than any farmed salmon. Check out the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch information about it:
http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/cr/SeafoodWatch/web/sfw_factsheet.aspx?gid=17
Great stuff. Have fun with the salmon, wild caught Alaskan salmon is a special thing.
Haagen Dazs Five: high overrun?
I echo the love of the sorbet. Especially the Raspberry Sorbet/Vanilla Frozen Yogurt swirl pints (or whatever size they are now) when I can find it. That's one of my favorite frozen dessert/ice cream type options.
Oringer on Iron Chef
It's an episode from about a year ago, I think. A short thread (with spoilers) is here:
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/506765
Starbucks London Fog tea latte, anyone try it?
Why would it make a difference if they test marketed it before selling the drink in their stores?
Please create an MSP board
See this message:
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/475963
1 night in Charlottesville...where to eat dinner?
I'm thrilled to hear it went so well and that you enjoyed yourselves so much! And thanks for the report back, that's really great. Reading your description of your dinner has me ready to call for a table this week.
Thanks again for checking back in and I really am glad it all went well.
It seems like Bumble Bee Tuna has gone down in quality
The soy is listed as a part of the allergen information. According to their website, the vegetable broth has some soy in it. They've not replaced tuna with soy protein.
It's all right there on the label to be read. You don't have to trust, you can read.
When Should Mods Let Posts Remain, When It Comes To People's Safety?
To me, in addition, I wouldn't want anyone thinking that Chowhound was a good place to come and get information about whether a particular neighborhood is, in fact, safe. If such posts and discussions were allowed I can easily imagine that someone might think something along the lines of "well, I've never seen anyone on Chowhound write that neighborhood isn't safe, so I bet it's fine." To me, it's a defensible position for Chowhound to take to avoid having such discussions entirely so that no one would ever think it's a reliable place to find such information.
Do you think we are influncing the food quality in the Chains--I'm seeing a lot of posts reconsidering their position on Chains...
Which "we" is it that you think might be making a difference?
save the world
As regards food miles, check out this thread to click through to a piece at Mother Jones discussing them, in part.
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/602018#4484183
It isn't as simple as shop and eat locally. alwayscooking hit on a key that I've seen universal agreement about: if you eat less food from animals (which I'm using instead of "meat" to include poultry, fish, beef, pork, etc and so on) and more food from plants it will dramatically reduce the amount of energy used on your food in terms of production.
The tip then, if your primary concern is to reduce energy use overall, is eat less meat and dairy.
If your concern is to reduce energy used when cooking and shopping, I guess you should walk to where you shop, use your microwave instead of your oven wherever possible and keep your refrigerator full even if you need to use random containers of water as a full refrigerator will maintain its temperature more effectively when the door is open and require less energy to cool it back down each time.
Thinking outside the CSA box: Mother Jones on sustainability
I urge everyone to click over to the article. These bits really need their full context for the extent of what the author is getting at to be appreciated. Honestly, they don't really make much sense out of context.
Thanks to the OP for posting, this was a very interesting read.
It seems like Bumble Bee Tuna has gone down in quality
Is it snuck in if it's on the label?
Haagen Dazs Five: high overrun?
I believe that the measurement for ice cream containers is for volume, not weight. Thus 1/2 gallon and gallon containers as one moves up in sizes.
Of course, you originally meant that it tasted lighter or felt lighter in terms of mouthfeel, so it's not relevant to your initial statement. But I had to stop and think for a moment about weight versus volume myself.
Tabasco Habanero
ChinoWayne describes it well, more full bodied in flavor and significantly hotter. I keep a bottle of both in my cabinet. The habanero sauce is particularly good for giving small amounts of thick salsas or sauces more kick without watering them down at all.
On the subject of refrigerator ice makers...
You might look to see if there's a filter and if so, change it. If there's no filter on the water line that feeds the ice maker you might think about installing something like one of these Culligan in-line filters. They cost about less than $20 and take about 15 minutes to put in. We used it for drinking water at our tap but it's the same plumbing for that as for the ice maker. It's at Amazon, here.
http://tinyurl.com/cd2rk8
Favorite Size Cast Iron Skillet
I've got a 10 inch Lodge skillet and it's the perfect size but that's only because it's just me and my wife that I'm cooking for most often. I use it for fried chicken most frequently.
What else is your go to breakfast besides eggs?
Thanks very much for the information, I appreciate it.
What else is your go to breakfast besides eggs?
I've never heard of soy grits before? Are they made to resemble corn grits but made of soy or are they something else?
Portion Size Vs. $, Would You Complain?
The only mention of quality is "I'm glad the food was decent..."
Ultimately, isn't that the key? If the food is spectacular, perhaps it's worth this much effort and thought. It doesn't sound like the food at this place is good enough to worry about a lot, though. I'd say find food that's worth spending money on, that tastes truly special and eat that.
What else is your go to breakfast besides eggs?
yep. congee. waiting for me in the rice cooker most mornings. sometimes i'll add a poached egg or two, sometimes a fried egg, sometimes some leftover fish or chicken or vegetables. Often, though, just some soy and some chili sauce.
Gelatin in yogurt
Is the objection to gelatin because you're a vegetarian?
Related to that, I suppose, is whether Kosher gelatin is an animal sourced item or not because I have read labels that specify Kosher gelatin in yogurt. I don't know enough personally about it to be able to confidently offer advice that would be in keeping with your choices but it might be worth looking into (the Kosher gelatin thing, I mean).
I also wonder whether soy yogurt might be less likely to have gelatin? I honestly have no real idea one way or another but the thought occurred to me (or perhaps someone wrote it in a post above and I noted it without really processing that I did).
